Anger
by decuvieri
Summary: 002, angry and not exactly knowing why, recieves a tale and some advice from one of the less outspoken members of the group.


**Category:** Cyborg 009  
**Rating: **K+  
**Genre:** Drama  
**Summary:** 002, angry and not exactly knowing why, receives a tale and some advice from one of the less outspoken members of the group.

Anger

Zero-Zero-Two had gone well out of his way to seclude himself in the cover of night. Dr. Kozumi's private island was not very wide. However, there were plenty of alcoves and overhangs about the coast that could keep a person well hidden from any prying eyes that might try to disturb the peace. Access varied from grotto to grotto, but Zero-Zero-Two's abilities of flight made scaling the cliffs of task of little difficulty.

When the cyborg finally settled at a descent spot he was too restless to sit down. Anger and apprehension worsened his mood as it frequently did, causing him to go into fits of silent rage. Only on an extreme show of control on his part did Jet manage to get himself away from the others before he hit his boiling point and lashed out against them. It was all for the best, he thought furiously, as most of them probably wouldn't be able to stand the verbal assault of choice words he had without breaking down into a crying fit.

Where this disapprobation that was always twisting his emotions came from exactly was a mystery to Jet. It could have originated in his annoyance of having to deal with such naive comrades, or perhaps it was the hopelessness of the entire opposition of Black Ghost. Maybe it was something else, or maybe it was everything together. Regardless, it left him with a gnarled feeling at the end of the day, when his emotions became uncontrollable and turbulent within his heart and had to be sorted out.

Everything was so different from how it used to be. Back home it was hardly simple, butthat was life as how he had always known it to be. Being a gang leader meant knowing who your enemies were and knowing who could be counted on to cover your back. There was always a firm trust between the members of his court; they would help each other, they would help him, and he would help them - regardless of the situation.

He didn't have that secure feeling here. Hell, the pack of mismatched cyborgs hardly knew one another, much less considered their peers as life lines. They were all so blind to reality with their ideals of easily-achieved peace and a quick end to this... this _war_.

Jet wanted to yell at them - at some more than others - for being so damn simpleminded. There wouldn't be a quick fix that would make all the bad things go away. There was an all out struggle ahead of them to obtain a placatory way of living that would always be stained by the blood of those that would inevitably be killed, no matter how much they didn't want it to be so.

Zero-Zero's Three and Nine were probably the worst. Insisting that every day could be the last day of this never ending nightmare in hopes of re-establishing a sense of innocence was hardly a way to look at things. The fact that Zero-Zero-Three was one of the original four, even, and she still hadn't found a way to accept what had happened was particularly vexing.

Others weren't so bad. Zero-Zero-Five seemed to have the entire picture taken in, as the quiet ones always seemed to do. Ivan… Hell, Ivan was the closest thing that the group had to a leader sometimes, which was quite ironic as he wasn't even able to eat solid foods yet. Chef Chong back there had incorporated his little fire breathing talent into what he did best: cooking. Pyunma had even gone as far as taken on actual combat training to deal with the crisis and Great Britain... Well, he did what he needed to do to not go insane. Maybe.

Who **really** pissed Jet off was Zero-Zero-Four. It was like the guy had just taken the whole damn thing and gone with it like it was no big deal. First of all, you don't take things like having your body dissected and replaced with machinery by an evil criminal syndicate into stride. It's not normal. Albert, however, did: if he held a violent grudge against the Black Ghost organization he didn't show it. He never really displayed much real distress over anything, really, and hardly ever panicked in times of imminent danger. Then again he was the oldest of the original four, so it was likely that he had taken on the unconscious role of being the level-headed guardian as the others had expected him to be.

Still, the fact that Heinrich could read into people's thoughts so easily was unsettling, as was the fact that he didn't display his own so blatantly like other members of the group, the bastard. For some reason this made Jet hate him the most. Nobody could be that smug and nonchalant all the time; it was all an act, and the fact that Zero-Zero-Four wouldn't let people in on how he really felt was aggravating.

It was by mere chance did the movement of the hidden spy catch Zero-Zero-Two's attention. The dark depths of the ocean had allowed the invader to get far too close for comfort. Concealed beneath the black waves was an ever darker human-shaped shadow that remained in place, treading water and lurking soundly.

Instantly Zero-Zero-Two had withdrawn and fired his beam gun downwards at the intruder, hoping that he had seen the enemy before it had a chance to attack. The shot was ultimately lost in the sea: because of the deflection of light on the surface of water, his attack had gone well over the head of the enemy and missed.

What was more of an offset was the fact that his quarry's head poked up above the water at that, and even through the darkness it was obvious that it was Zero-Zero-Eight.

"You may not necessarily _like_ it," the African started, mildly irritated, "but we are all on the same side. Shooting down your comrades prob'bly isn't in your best interest, Zero-Zero-Two."

"If we're all on the same side then why did you feel the need to sneak up on me?" Jet holstered his weapon with a bit more of a punch than necessary for the act.

Pulling himself out from the water and onto a protruding rock, Zero-Zero-Eight looked down the other straight in the eye. "I didn't sneak up on you. I've been following you up from the time you left the house. You do have a way of attracting enemies when you storm out on your own like this, so I came to keep an eye on you."

"I don't need an eye kept on me."

"You know, that's exactly what I thought after you wound up facing off with Zero-Zero-Ten by yourself," Pyunma remarked sarcastically. "Now look how that ended up."

"You could have ended up dead just now if I hadn't missed. Don't call me the interminable one."

"But you are." The water-borne cyborg sighed despairingly, knowing that it was pretty hopeless to reason with the unreasonable. "Zero-Zero-Two, you think we're incompetent for battle, and maybe some of us are, but that doesn't mean you have to take it upon yourself to protect everyone. Throwing yourself into extreme danger when we should be working as a team doesn't help."

"What are you talking about? I don't-" Jet would have continued, but Pyunma answered before he could make anymore demands.

"I know that you come off being tough because of your history. I don't know much about how things go where you're comin' from, but I think I know some'n about a hard upbringing."

"Back on the old plantation there were a good number of slaves besides me. A lot of them were just kids whose folks couldn't pay off debts and were sold into slavery. We - that's the slaves that were born into slavery like I was - usually took on the duty of teachin' those greenhorns how to handle the fields and show them how the things worked for us."

Jet tried to interrupt, "Listen, Zero-Zero-Eight-"

"Just let me talk, Zero-Zero-Two."

"I once caught one of those kids trying to steal a hen from the chicken coupe when I was doing sentry duty one night. He'd already killed the thing so it wouldn't make too much noise as he ran it back to the shack to eat it. Nobody had ever told him that the price for stealing from the masters was usually losing your hand."

"Another sentry came by and saw what had happened, and fearing the punishment of keeping a secret like that from the masters, he reported us. Next morning the whole damn plantation was scurrying from the news that a greenhorn had gone rogue and I had been caught with him. The lord of the house was blowin' smoke from his ears, he was so mad, and told the guards to take the hand of the thief and give the accomplice twenty lashes. Problem was that no one could place who was the thief and who was the 'accomplice'. I lied to 'em: 'said straight out with all the nerve I could muster that I had killed the chicken so I could help feed the others and the greenhorn was only keeping watch."

"That night one of the militia men took me out to the hay barn for the punishment. Crazy thing was he unlocked my shackles and turned me loose. 'Run, boy,' he said to me, 'Run like you ain't never run before. Don't you turn back'. It was the first time a white man had ever talked to me past commanding me to do labor work, and I was so stunned I couldn't believe it. At first I thought he'd try to shoot me in the back as I fled, but I knew I'd have better chances turning my back than I would staying at that plantation. So I ran. I ran and he never tried to shoot me down."

Zero-Zero-Two had calmed significantly since the beginning of the conversation, and his voice was quiet when he spoke. "Why are you telling me this?"

"You're hardly new to combat, Zero-Zero-Two. My guess is your reason for being so angry with some of the others is kind of the same reason why I said I was the thief. You think it's your duty to protect those who don't know, like Three and Nine. You get upset at them because they are too scared to face the things you have already seen, and then you get even madder because you don't want them to have to. What you're feeling is frustration at this whole dilemma, and from it comes this anger that eats away at you."

The American thought about this for a moment, finally learning where this inner turmoil was coming from. How Pyunma knew so much about him when Jet had gone out of his way to keep things like this to himself was questionable, but it was easier to deal with now that he knew just what it his rage was.

"You know, before I was abducted I had been shot twice. Nothing ever hurt so bad in my life as those wounds. And now... _Now_ I get shot at every damn day by tanks and foot soldiers and giant armored cyborgs. _Now_ it's nothing if I get hit once or twice or even fifty times. It's just so different from the way things used to be."

"You're one of the original four," Pyunma said, "but that doesn't mean that the rest of us expect you to be completely adjusted and alright with the way things are. 'Matter of fact, I think that's why some others act like it's nothing. Zero-Zero-Four, for example. It's not that he isn't bothered by being physically altered into being what he is now, but more like he knows that this party really can't have more than one person falling apart at this disaster at a time. This is why he doesn't question it; it's not acceptance, but the less he wonders 'why' the more it seems that he doesn't care. He will ask himself about it some day, but I think he's just waiting for everyone else to come to terms with it first. "

Pyunma stood, stretched, and looked out to the black water solemnly. "I go on shift in a little bit so I have to go rendezvous with Great Britain. I'll let the others know you need some time and they'll understand. In the mean time you try to sort things out. I'll see you back at the house when I do."

Jet watched the other cyborg dive back into the sea and disappear into the dark just like that. Who he had taken for a naive, simple person had actually turned out to be deep and contemplative within. It was completely the opposite of what he had suspected and even imagined what the individual was capable of. Maybe his canalizations of the other cyborgs _were_ wrong.

There would beplenty of time for Jet to sort that out.

* * *

Authors Notes: The main focus of this story was originally to be focused primarily on Jet and Albert as I have a fixation for the coupling. However, when Pyunma showed up (and deftly thwarted all of my plans) I began to realize how little we know about him. Being as enigmatic as he is I felt I should keep going on with his speech... And it was drawn so far out that by the time it was finished the story seemed to end. Which it did. So, blame him; not me. XD 


End file.
